#self-publishers

[digital-publishing-mobile]

10 Top Digital Publishing Experts You Should Know

Digital publishing revolution has turned upside down magazines and newspapers industry, as well as significantly affected book market and changed the perception of academic and kids publications. Now, all these fields are connected by one common factor – the possibility of distribution thanks to digital platforms e.g. mobile apps or online newsstands. The goal is…

Click here to Read more...

[maliniatspa]

http://selfpublishersshowcase.com/malini-chaudhri/

[johnkremer]

Please Share: I Support Indie Authors

Please Share: I Support Indie Authors

Support #indie #authors everywhere! Buy a self-published novel and plunge into new wonderful worlds! Or buy an informative, educational, or inspirational self-published nonfiction book and learn something great! [Tweet “Support #indie #authors everywhere! Buy a self-published novel and plunge into new wonderful worlds!”] [Tweet “Buy an informative or inspirational self-published nonfiction book…

View On WordPress

[zuzuillustrator-blog]

Tools & Tricks: Deconstructing My Children's Book Illustration

Even with limited drawing ability there are simple techniques to improve your illustrations immediately. To demonstrate, I've deconstructed one of my recent paintings, The Flyers. This is a children's book illustration where I wanted to focus on the characters in a light, happy environment. I'd really like for beginner artist to find some simple ways to boost their skills, so I'll be continuing with this series that I'm calling Illustration Tips and Tricks. Let's jump into it!

Start at the beginning.

Continue Reading Post

Click to Post

[percivalconstantine]

How many books equals success?

How many #ebooks equals success? #selfpublishing

Last night, I was shown this blog post by Claude Forthomme. The link was shared with me by a fellow indie who was surprised by Forthomme’s headline, “Only 40 Self Published Authors are a Success, says Amazon.”

Only forty? That seems pretty low. Especially because the definition of success is extremely subjective.

One author may define success as winning awards. Another might define it by the size…

View On WordPress

[writinglifenow-blog]

Call To Arms: Resist Paid Book Reviews

A recent hot topic in the publishing world is writers paying for Amazon reviews. A number of high profile and best-selling authors have been called on the carpet for their extensive use of review services. For as little as $5 per review, these authors amassed a largess of customer reviews on Amazon. Perhaps based on the notion of the bandwagon effect, these writers’ books were catapulted onto bestseller lists. Eventually their need for paying for reviews was replaced by reviews given freely by their increasingly vast audience. But without them, they would have never achieved this level of success.

So, in response to these writers who “abused” the system by paying for reviews and achieving fame, glory and financial success, many writers and those in the publishing industry are up in arms. Presumably these unethical authors gamed the system by paying for good reviews, i.e. 5 star, although paying for an “honest” review might have been the goal for some of these writers. Regardless, the practice is abhorrent to many.

In fact, this phenomenon got so bad that Amazon went forward recently and sued a number of writers who were committing this abuse. However, in this ongoing discussion of gaming the system by paying for the reviews –and thus putting the integrity of all reviews into question, as Amazon argued in their lawsuits – there is little discussion of a larger issue in regards to reviews. The issue? To amass any substantial amounts of reviews you have to pay someone.

Let me give a specific example that has become an industry standard: Netgalley. Netgalley is used by many large and small publishers, plus a smaller number of self-published authors. The cost is over $300 per title, no matter how many titles you put out a year. That allows your book to be put into a database in which potential readers can download a free digital galley –also known as an e-ARC or electronic advanced review copy– and then review the book. Although the reviewers aren’t being paid for their services, beyond getting a free copy of the book, essentially publishers and authors are paying for reviews. There are no guarantee for a good review, so in that way integrity is maintained. However, this program, and similar ones like Amazon Vine, forces writers to pay for the privilege of having their books reviewed.

Yes, it is possible to get by with getting reviews for free or on the cheap, but I argue not in the same amounts as with these types of paid services. Why? Partly because lists of reviewers are now a hot commodity because these expensive paid services exist.

I believe that the publishing industry –especially in terms of small presses and self-publishers authors –are primed for a revolution in how reviews are amassed. I don’t believe this model of paying hundreds of dollars to garner a respectable amount of reviews –especially the amounts of reviews needed to catapult a book to a bestseller status– is sustainable. The profit margins are already so slim. The cost of publishing even electronically or POD is high because of paying for a bevy of services, e.g. cover designers, blog tours, EBook conversions, distribution packages, book trailers, website design, proofreaders, and more, even without the upfront cost of printing the book. We as writers and small publishers are already stretched too thin.

And what are you paying for with a review service? A database of email addresses of bloggers who review or customers who post reviews on Amazon, Goodreads and other sites. Yes, there are some free services or lists out there, but they are cumbersome to use and often generate a minimal amount of success because of how limited they are.

With the publishing community up in arms about the high profile use of questionable, if not unethical, paid review services, I urge everyone to also take a good hard look at industry accepted use of respectable review services like Netgalley and Amazon Vine. As long as these databases are proprietary and the cost is substantial, the practicality of competing with those with deep marketing pockets is extremely low. And I believe that if we challenge this industry norm, we can begin a free dialogue and cheaper exchange of such databases and help each other get the amount of reviews all books deserve.

Right now, in my role as author, owner of a small press, Fat Daddy’s Farm, and book manager at Booktrope, I am in the middle of culling my own database of reviewers that I will be glad to share. I already have substantial Twitter lists of over 500 reviewers and bloggers. Sifting through that information to actually start using these lists will take me more time, especially when tailoring it to specific authors, but I believe if we begin to do this and freely share this information, we can go a long ways to breaking the stranglehold that paid exorbitant review services -respectable or not- have in our efforts to connect to our writers, and not bleed out financially in the process.

I am also hopeful that some business –like Amazon did with their Kindle Desktop Publishing services in reaction to the previous high cost of self-publishing– will see the potential to make a lot of money by offering affordable review services. Or an affordable database will be made available similar to that of the Writer’s Market with publisher information. However, without acknowledging the problem itself, we are at the mercy of the expensive services that do exist, or live with only a modicum of reviews.

-Melissa Miles McCarter Http://melissamilesmccarter.com Http://amazon.com/author/Melissa

If you would like to have access to my Twitter lists of bloggers and reviews, follow me @Booktroper

[gulpswallow]

ALMOST ALMOST!

I wasn’t a winner, but I must have come close.  My book, DEAD LETTER, was entered in this year’s annual self-published book awards competition sponsored by Writer’s Digestmagazine, one of two of the most important trade publications in the book biz.  DEAD LETTER scored the highest (5 = “Outstanding”) in every category except for one in which it got a 4—the cover!   The judge was not crazy about…

View On WordPress